Mr Quackles
by LovinLupin
Summary: Written for an April Fool's Ficcy challenge, Peter intends to take a relaxing bubble bath, but instead faces a life or death situation! MWPP


**Mr. Quackles**

"Good job, Wormtail," said James, laughing while he, Peter, Sirius, and Remus walked into their dormitory after dinner. Peter had once again spilled dessert all over himself when Sirius had reached the punch line of his joke. One would think that the boy would learn to pause in eating every night when Sirius started to tell his jokes, but some wizards are just slower than others. You see, James and Sirius had a running bet going. James had declared that Peter wouldn't learn to wait until after Sirius finished his after-dinner jokes and stories before starting on dessert until the end of this year. Sirius, however, believed that Peter would discover the connection in seventh year, two years from now. Young Pettigrew knew nothing of this bet, of course, which is how young Potter and Black intended to keep it. For whoever won the bet, also won one hundred Galleons, along with all homework done by the loser for two weeks.

"I'm going to go take a shower, see if I can get this raspberry trifle out before it permanently dyes my hair pink like last time," Peter grabbed his towel and green pajamas with yellow duckies on them and headed into the bathroom. Shortly after that, the other three students who had the misfortune of sharing that particular dormitory with Peter, were covering their ears with identical looks of agony etched on their faces. Peter, by the sounds of it, had begun his daily bubble bath routine (and this term is used loosely) of singing to his rubber ducky, Mr. Quackles. Remus had put a noise barrier charm on the door so that no sound could penetrate, but it appeared to have worn off.

"What idiot took the noise barrier off of that door?" Sirius hurt his throat yelling in order to be heard above the abominable racket.

"Who cares who did it! I want to know how to put the charm back up!!" James glared at Remus, "Well, Moony? Why aren't you doing anything?! What's the spell you used last time?!"

"I don't remember! I put it up years ago!" All three lunged for their Charms books to look up sound barrier spells. In the middle of their frantic page flipping (which could only be heard during brief pauses from Peter to breathe) Peter suddenly hit a particularly shrill high note. It sounded like he was dieing! He obviously had no idea the others could hear him or, surely, he would have taken pity on them and hummed or whistled. But this, sadly for his friends, was not the case, and so they suffered.

James and Remus suddenly realized, however, that Peter's attempt at a high note was not Peter attempting to sing at all! His terrified shrieks had turned into a barely coherent _"MR. QUACKLES???!"_

As Remus and James rushed in, forgetting for the moment the undressed state their friend could be in, they heard Sirius screaming, "YOUR STUPID DUCK DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SERENADE HIM, AND IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP THIS INSTANT, PETER, I'M GOING TO TURN _YOU_ INTO A FREACKIN DUCK AND YOU'LL NEVER SING AGAIN!!!" Needless to say, he hadn't realized Peter seemed to be threatened by someone or something other than himself yet. Things seemed to click, however, when he saw two of his best friends rush into the bathroom that Peter happened to be occupying.

When he heard the other too yell in alarm, Sirius decided to follow. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the sight that met his eyes upon entering. A very large Mr. Quackles, covered in bubbles and soap suds, was steadily growing and in about ten seconds was going to crush Peter who was pressed up against the wall in the corner of the tub. Sirius quickly grabbed Peter's arm and pulled him from the bathroom, and ran out into the hallway towards the common room. Remus quickly followed with a towel for Peter and threw it at him before they reached the bottom of the stairs. Peter, too, was covered by suds and bubbles, but that could quickly change. James had stayed behind trying to find the right spell or hex to slow the process of the growing duck, or reverse it, but gave up when he realized that if he didn't leave soon, Mr. Quackles was going to block his only exit.

When James reached the common room, Peter had a towel on, thankfully, and the other two were catching their breaths. He nonchalantly glanced around the common room, as was his habit, to see if Lily was present. She was over in the corner with an upside down book in one hand with her best friend, April, laughing hysterically, and then they slapped each other's hands. How peculiar? Remus had tried it once with James in First Year. He'd said it was very popular among muggles, and they called it a "_high five_". He still didn't understand the point of it, and Remus couldn't figure out how to explain when the proper time to slap another muggle's hands was, but had said he'd attempted it at that time, because they had pulled off a successful prank...


End file.
